Shortly after the infamous slope controversy, the UK tabloid The Daily Mirror accused Clarkson of using the n-word in unaired Top Gear footage. After initially denying the incident, Clarkson later apologised for his remarks when video evidence of the incident emerged. This and the slope controversy prompted the BBC to issue a 'final warning' to Clarkson, which later led to his dismissal a year later.
Incident[]
In the third episode of the nineteenth series of Top Gear, Clarkson reviews the Toyota GT86 and the Subaru BRZ. At the end of his review, he remarks about how similar the cars are and suggests using the counting rhyme, eeny, meeny, miny, moe, to decide between them. Historically, the rhyme included the word 'ni**er' in the line "catch a __ by the toe". In the footage that aired, Clarkson uses the word 'teacher' in its place, but in the unaired footage obtained by The Daily Mirror Clarkson appears to mumble the n-word instead.
Response[]
Clarkson initially denied the allegations, but after The Daily Mirror published video of the incident, Clarkson issued an apology video. In it, he said:
Ordinarily I don't respond to newspaper allegations but on this occasion I feel I must make an exception. A couple of years ago I recorded an item for Top Gear in which I quote the rhyme "eeny, meeny, miny, moe". Of course, I was well aware that in the best-known version of this rhyme there is a racist expression that I was extremely keen to avoid. The full rushes show that I did three takes. In two, I mumbled where the offensive word would normally occur and in the third I replaced it altogether with the word teacher. Now when I viewed this footage several weeks later I realised that in one of the mumbled versions if you listen very carefully with the sound turned right up it did appear that I'd actually used the word I was trying to obscure. I was mortified by this, horrified. It is a word I loathe and I did everything in my power to make sure that that version did not appear in the programme that was transmitted. I have here the note that was sent at the time to the production office and it says: "I didn't use the N-word here but I've just listened through my headphones and it sounds like I did. Is there another take that we could use?" Please be assured I did everything in my power to not use that word, as I'm sitting here begging your forgiveness for the fact my efforts obviously weren't quite good enough, thank you.